Catherine Stansfield

Makin’ Moves

African Violet Sky by Clark Thomas Carlton

The earth is one part in a set
of endlessly moving parts,
moving around a sun
bursting with such generosity
that it shares its summer
with strangers.
And we move too—
Even while we sleep,
our chests pump
and our lashes beat
and our brains cannot
stay dormant so they take us
to new worlds that our
brain cells paint in real time.
Even when we die
our energy must go somewhere,
moving beyond,
tangling with unseen forces,
so curious that half of our lives
are spent wondering
about a lack of life
and if there is a man
on or above the moon.
The moon is just a rock,
and humans have moved
mountains to prove so.
But Michelangelo’s work
was nothing but rocks
until he touched them
and moved them too.
Even the ground beneath us,
the supposed sturdy
foundation to our day by days,
moves along as well.
Its plates slide apart
at their own pace,
early morning breakfasts,
countertops and diner days.
They have done so before
and they will do so again,
cracking a solid one
into countless manys.
Though the earth is round,
so every inch apart
brings us closer together,
to something new,
to something that moves us.

 

About the writer:
Catherine Stansfield’s work is featured or is forthcoming in The MacGuffin, Mount Hope Magazine, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and The Virginia Normal. She has a BA in English from Caldwell University in New Jersey. Currently, she works as a graphic designer and publishing assistant and continues to live in New Jersey along with her husband and their cat, Ollie.

Image: African Violet Sky by Clark Thomas Carlton. No medium specified. No size specified. 2016. By free license.